‘Net News: 30th July 2012

Kill Your Darlings launches its YA Championship today with Andrew McDonald’s love of Space Demons. Eleven contributors over three weeks will give their two cents on the best of Australian youth literature to help the public vote. Make sure you check in daily to reacquaint yourself with some great, and hopefully not forgotten, titles. KYD outlines the championship, contributors and titles up for the glory.

2. What is YA?

It is a discussion that continues over at Kill Your Darlings online with some fantastic insight from a range of youth literature professionals. The comments section is also providing food for thought – what does ‘young adult’ mean for you?

Melbourne based graphic designer, Jennifer Wu, has been working on this fun project for some time. She’s taking cliched book covers (specifically YA) and mixing them up with her incredible graphic skills. Not only are these covers beautiful but they demonstrate an understanding of the current marketing machine and display a wonderful sense of humour. Which one is your favourite? (I am quite partial to this one .)

Isobelle Carmody has launched her blog, Greylands, with a bang. It has a limited life span – one month – and will represent many thoughts on eBooks and its impact on our industry. Every day features a new contributor; Erica Wagner (publisher, A&U), Melbourne Girls College students and even the magnificent Margo Lanagan revealing their thoughts on the eBook craze. Adele Walsh was also invited to contribute with her thoughts on her reluctance to start reading electronically and what doing so has meant for her reading habits.

More importantly, the blog launches Isobelle’s title Greylands into the electronic ether as an eBook.